This morning, a Lifehacker intern complained that the new Gmail made it too hard to see labels. Then a Lifehacker editor pitched in that the new Gmail makes it too hard to create filters. Not so, my friends. The new Gmail has changed a few things, though, so here's a little primer on how to handle things in the new Gmail that may have changed slightly in the redesign.

Make Your Labels Stand Out

Intern John: "I find it so hard to read the names of the labels in the new design. Dark gray on light gray? Really?"

Worry not, John and others like John! You can adjust the color for any of your labels really easily. Just click the drop-down arrow next to any label in your sidebar, choose a new label color (you can even add your own custom color!). Problem solved!

This is a feature that's been around for a while in Gmail, but if you were happy with your labels as they were, you may not have noticed. If the new Gmail's default label coloring is throwing you for a loop, there's your fix.

Make a New Filter

Au contraire, Jason! It is, in fact, easier to create a filter now. Similar to the label colors, the new create a filter functionality is hidden behind the drop-down to the right of the search box. Click that to display the new advanced search form, fill out your Tos, Froms, Subjects, and other search criteria, and click Create filter with this search. Nutritious!

Grab Bag!

I put a call out on Twitter and Google+ to see what's confusing or frustrating other people about the Gmail redesign, just in case there's a solution they just weren't aware of. So here we go:

Get Profile Pics for Your Contacts

@BonnieMacD: "profile pics in the conversation view, since almost no one I email with has one"

Solution! Sure, if your contacts all have Google accounts and they've added profile pics, those avatars show up automatically, but your contacts don't need to have added their own profile pics in order for them to show up in conversation view. You can add your own pics to contacts by hovering over that anonymous avatar, then hovering over the larger anonymous avatar in the popup and clicking Add a picture. You can then upload a pic from your computer, add one from the web, or add one from Picasa. The cake is not a lie!

Get Rid of Ads Above the Inbox

+Alan Smodic: "On the web, the new ad slot just above the inbox is no longer blocked by Ad Block Plus. Not a problem, just pointing it out. They clearly did something different with it and I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere."

Answer from +Daniel James: "Actually, the easy way to get rid of that is to go to your Gmail Settings, go to the tab called "Web Clips," and then uncheck the box."

Jump to the top of the inbox

+José Sá: "Is now more difficult to go to the top of the inbox. There no no shortcut, I have to manually scroll which is annoying."

I have no idea what José is talking about in terms of what's gone missing, but there is a shortcut to get to the top of the inbox, and it works on any page. Pressing Spacebar when no form or input has focus is the equivalent of pressing Page Down. Similarly, pressing Shift+Spacebar is like pressing Page Up. And it'll jump you to the top of your inbox.

Alternately, if you have keyboard shortcuts enabled in Gmail, just press "G then I" (Go to Inbox). Voila!

Any Others?

If there was a Gmail problem
Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it